Hugo & Nebula Awards: Best Novels discussion

As I mentioned in the 2023 Themes thread, I've created a shelf of 56 books that have been nominated for 5 or more awards, as listed by Worlds Without End (worldswithoutend.com), a site I use extensively. Here's a breakdown showing the number of books at each number of nominations:
5 awards: 30
6 awards: 12
7 awards: 8
8 awards: 5
9 awards: 1

Here's the game: see how many of the 56 you can identify! No cheating or looking them up on WWE!

I probably will never be able to do this. I will think them up a few at a time probably

This is books, not authors right?

Books, yes.

Yes, that's what I was thinking. Post a few that come to mind & I'll say right or wrong.

I bet more are newer, but for my first guess, Stranger in a Strange Land

Links to the books would be nice, all of you making guesses, if you know how to do it.

I'd say Dune and Neuromancer

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

Perdido Street Station

Are we guessing only ones we have yet to read, or both read and unread?

All of them. We've read 21 of the 56 books (no peeking at the shelves).

Stranger in a Strange Land - incorrect, only Hugos existed in 1962
Dune - incorrect, also too old (1966)
Neuromancer - correct! It's one of the 8 books that were nominated for 7 awards.
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - correct! Also a 7-award nominee.
Perdido Street Station - correct! One of 5 books with 8 nominations.

A slight hint: remember, I said some are books in a series. Also, there are a number of unexpected titles.

Barrayar

Cordelia wrote: "Barrayar"

Great guess, but incorrect. Barrayar won the Hugo and Locus SF & was nominated for the Nebula.

The City & the City by China Miéville

"Ancillary Justice"
"The Sparrow"

Also A Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin

Will keep pondering.

I'm very curious to find out what the only book on our list with 9 different nominations is!

I'm guessing the more literary works have gotten some non-genre awards, as well.
So:
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

Gravity's Rainbow

Hmmm, how about The Yiddish Policemen's Union?

The Underground Railroad

Yiddish Policemen's Union seems likely, but Underground Railroad isn't even on our H/N list!

I assumed it had been nominated for the big genre awards, but I didn’t check to verify. I read it and thought it was a great book.

Colson Whitehead is one of the authors -- like Kazuo Ishiguro -- who write speculative fiction but are primarily recognized by the literary fiction community rather than the genre one. Although I heard a lot of people saying Klara and the Sun should have been on the Hugo ballot this past year. I haven't read it though.

Okay I'm also going to guess:

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin

This might be too early with too few awards but:

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

We have 7 correct guesses so far, concentrated in the most nominated books. Stephen 3, Kalin 2, Acorn 1, Gabi 1 .

9 awards: Ancillary Justice - good job, Gabi!

8 awards: Mexican Gothic - Kalin
8 awards: Perdido Street Station - Stephen
8 awards: The City & the City - Kalin

7 awards: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Stephen
7 awards: Neuromancer - Acorn

5 awards: The Yiddish Policemen's Union - Stephen

Maybe a few hints:

1) Of the 8 books remaining with 7 or 8 awards, only 1 was written before 2000.

2) Of the 12 books with 6 awards, there are 2 each in the 80's & 90's and 2 recent. We have read 5 of the 12 books in this category.

3) Only 1 series has multiple books; there are 2 from this series.

4) The oldest book is from the 70's; there are 8 from the 80's.

5) The books that have 5 or 6 awards are heavily concentrated from 2000-2015.

Hyperion? Uprooted? The Gods Themselves?

Wow! I had no idea Ancillary Justice got that many awards.
Thanks for the hints Allan. When I'm back from work I try some more guesses.

Ok, let's try again:
Piranesi was such a weird book, it could be nominated for many different genre awards.

Same with Blindsight, that mixes SF with horror elements.

Jemisin has to have at least one book on this list, I'll guess The Fifth Season

And I seem to remember that A Fire Upon the Deep was really popular back in the sau, so I'll throw that in as well.

Annihilation

Among Others

4 correct guesses from this last batch, plus a gimme:

Piranesi - 7 noms, your logic is correct!
Uprooted - 6 award nominations
Among Others - 6
The Fifth Season - 5, again, correct logic.

A Fire Upon the Deep - right idea, wrong book. It is the sequel, A Deepness in the Sky that made this list with 6 nominations.

HINT: Jemisin is one of 2 authors with 3 books among the 56, though she is NOT the one with the greatest number of award nominations.

HINT: The Broken Earth trilogy is NOT the series with multiple books on this list.

HINT: There are 2 books remaining with 8 nominations, and we have read them both. One has been adapted to the screen.

Hyperion had 4, so just missed this list.
The Gods Themselves is from 1973, just before awards started to proliferate.

You're up to 12 of the 56, keep it going!

I'm a bit surprised about The Fifth Season, my guess had been The Stone Sky because my impression was that momentum for recognition really built as that trilogy progressed.

I'll take that Jemisin hint though:
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms
The Killing Moon

I don't think it was guessed yet: American Gods

Also Blackout/All Clear, Connie Willis had quite a following by this point.

Ditto for The Curse of Chalion and Paladin of Souls for the same reason.

The urge to check WWE is strong.

Actually, I have a question. There are up to 9 awards being discussed here (or more than 9)? Could you list the ones we're guessing for?

All right! Now, you said there were 8 books from the 80's, and Neuromancer was one of the multiple-award-winners, so there's 7 left. I'll try to guess them all at once:

1) Ender's Game AND
2) Speaker for the Dead. I'm guessing this is the series with two entries.

3) Handmaid's Tale. I mean come on, there's a TV series and everything!

4) Schismatrix? Sterling has quite a reputation, but was this the book that made it?

5) Um. The Fountains of Paradise? Clarke even has an award named after him, so by name recognition alone he could've made it.

6) Er. Blood Music? Now I'm just guessing.

7) And let's take a wild stab: Startide Rising.

Allan wrote: "The Gods Themselves is from 1973, just before awards started to proliferate.."

I banked on it because it was the return of Asimov to SF after a long pause when he wrote non-fic

Antti wrote: "I'll try to guess them all at once:

1) Ender's Game AND
2) Speaker for the Dead. I'm guessing this is the series with two entries."

Yes, definitely it should be it!

This is fun! Thanks!

Well, if Uprooted had 6 nominations, maybe Spinning Silver also had a bunch.

Kalin wrote: "Actually, I have a question. There are up to 9 awards being discussed here (or more than 9)? Could you list the ones we're guessing for?"

It's the full WWE list of 29 awards, and I added Retro Hugos, one they don't track (they don't feel it's legitimate). It has lists
for all of them, showing them by their covers. I could look at those for days.

The awards and the number of H/N books being nominated:
HUGO - 351
NEBULA - 359
RETRO HUGO - 43
BFSA - 61
MYTHOPOEIC - 39
LOCUS SF - 166
LOCUS F - 67
LOCUS FN - 41
LOCUS YA - 5
LOCUS H -1
DERLETH - 13
HOLDSTOCK - 9
CAMPBELL - 86
WFA - 58
PROMETHEUS - 23
AURORA - 24
PKD - 18
CLARKE - 45
STOKER - 3
TIPTREE/OTHERWISE - 28
AUREALIS SF - 0
AUREALIS F - 1
AUREALIS H - 0
NORTON - 2
JACKSON - 4
RED TENTACLE - 7
GOLDEN TENTACLE - 4
LEGEND - 3
MORNINGSTAR -2
NOMMO - 0

Doomsday Book? The Giver?

Sorry, had a very busy day & was trying to keep up with the ideas! From the 14 guesses, here are the 4 correct ones:
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms - 6 - Kalin
American Gods - 7 - Kalin
The Handmaid's Tale - 5 - Antti
Doomsday Book - 6 - Ed

There were 7 excellent guesses from the mid-80's, i.e Ender's Game, but nearly all of them had 4 award nominations.

So we're up to 16 correct:

9 noms - only 1 in this group: Ancillary Justice

8 noms - 4 of 5 correct:
Mexican Gothic
American Gods
Perdido Street Station
The City & the City

7 noms - 3 of 8 identified:
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Neuromancer
Piranesi

6 noms - 5 of 12 identified:
A Deepness in the Sky
Among Others
Doomsday Book
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms
Uprooted

5 noms - the hardest group - 3 of 30 identified:
The Fifth Season
The Handmaid's Tale
The Yiddish Policemen's Union

Hints:

1) I spoke in error when I said that there was one series with 2 books among the 56. There are in fact two. One is from the 80's, while the other is from the 00's.

2) Here's a breakdown of the 5-award category by decade. The 2nd number is how many of the 13 books with more awards are in that decade.
70's - 1 - 0
80's - 5 - 2
90's - 6 - 2
00's - 7 - 3
10's - 6 - 4
20's - 2 - 2

3) The only remaining book with 8 nominations is by a one-hit wonder. Two of the 5 remaining with 7 noms, 2 of the 7 with 6 noms, and 7 of the 27 with 5 noms.

4) There are 2 Hugo/Nebula winners among the 13 books with more than 5 award noms. There are 6 winners among the remaining 27 5-nom books.

I’m going to guess The Shadow of the Torturer, a critically accaimed work if there ever was one.

Flowers for Algernon?

Oof, I did dismally on my 80's guesses: only 1 out of 7 correct! Well, I shan't let that discourage: on with the show, let's try the 90's this time!

1) China Mountain Zhang. Allan hinted there were lots of one-hit wonders, so I'm guessing this could be one of them.

2) Hyperion didn't make the list, but I'll use Kalin's logic and guess that the Fall of Hyperion did.

3) Synners was pretty bad, but also pretty visionary, so maybe they liked that sort of thing in the 90's.

4) Beggars in Spain. Nancy Kress was pretty popular for a while.

5) There has to be one Vorkosigan book in this list, so I'm going with Memory.

6) I want to believe that even in the 90's people recognized Parable of the Sower as the masterpiece it is.

7) Is there still two books left? Hmm, I think Walter Jon Williams might be on the list, since he had such fame during the cyberpunk years. But which book? I was surprised to notice that City on Fire (but not Metropolitan) got both the H and N nominations, so maybe that's the one?

8) And let's end with a pure guess again: Starplex.

Paladin of Souls

Sorry for the late reply, I was out of town over the weekend, just getting back into the swing of things.

Stephen got The Shadow of the Torturer correct! I'll also disclose that The Book of the New Sun is the only series with 3 books on the list (I miscounted earlier)! The Claw of the Conciliator had 5 nominations, The Sword of the Lictor had 6.

Antti had many solid guesses above, but only 1 is correct: Beggars in Spain.

Giveaway: Since this one is very tough, I'll give it to you. The remaining book with 8 nominations is from a one-hit wonder, The Drowning Girl by Caitlín R. Kiernan.

Hint: Gene Wolfe has the 2nd-most books (all identified now), along with NK Jemisin (2 of 3 identified).

Hint: We've identified 2 of 4 for the author with the most books. The remaining 2 books both have 7 nominations.

Hint: Three (3) authors with 2 books each are known for writing lengthy tomes that could use some editing. Only 1 of these 6 books has been identified.

Hint: There are still 5 books unidentified that were written in 2019 or after.

Hint: There is still 1 book in the 70s and 4 in the 80s unidentified.

8 noms - 5 of 5 identified:
Mexican Gothic
American Gods
Perdido Street Station
The City & the City
The Drowning Girl

7 noms - 3 of 8 identified:
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Neuromancer
Piranesi

6 noms - 6 of 12 identified:
A Deepness in the Sky
Among Others
Doomsday Book
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms
Uprooted
The Sword of the Lictor

5 noms - the hardest group - 6 of 30 identified:
Beggars in Spain
The Claw of the Conciliator
The Fifth Season
The Handmaid's Tale
The Shadow of the Torturer
The Yiddish Policemen's Union

Looking at the hint about authors who write lengthy tomes that could use some editing, the first that comes to mind is Stephen King. But I can’t think of any Hugo/Nebula nominated novels he wrote. Another would be J. K Rowling. I know Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire won a Hugo, so I’ll guess that is one. Heinlein is another, was Time Enough for Love the ‘70s book? And then there’s Blackout/All Clear.

Stephen King is not on the H/N list, although he's garnered other awards as you would expect. Goblet of Fire won the Hugo, but that was its only award nomination! Heinlein is an amateur when it comes to lengthy books, in comparison to these others.

However, you did identify 1 author of the 3 correctly, Connie Willis, though Blackout/All Clear (4 awards) is not the correct book.

The Connie Wilis book was already identified.
I think King did have a nominated novella, just not a novel.

Ed wrote: "The Connie Wilis book was already identified.
I think King did have a nominated novella, just not a novel."

Hint: Three (3) authors with 2 books each are known for writing lengthy tomes that could use some editing. Only 1 of these 6 books has been identified.

Willis's Doomsday Book was identified. She has another.

King has many awards & nominations, especially Locus, WFA & Stoker. These are his Hugos:
1977 - Best Dramatic Presentation for Carrie (the movie)
1982 - Best Non-Fiction Book - Danse Macabre (won)
2016 - Best Novelette - If It Bleeds

His one Nebula nomination was 1980 - Best Novelette - The Way Station